An ironing machine for ironing and drying clothing articles is known comprising at least one rotating roller facing a static ironing tray. The mentioned rotating roller is hollow and has cylindrical wall with multiple perforations, covered by springs and with an outer coating of flannelette, while the ironing tray presents a concave mirror-finished surface, heated from its outer face by heating means. The clothing articles are passed between the flannelette associated with the rotating roller and the polished, heated tray surface, and pulled along by the roller rotation and accompanied by flexible bands mounted on various satellite rollers. The mentioned springs arranged under the flannelette in the rotating roller covering provide an ironing pressure against the heated tray surface.
One drawback of this type of ironing machine is that the tray surface is difficult to heat uniformly because same is static. Thus, the heating means must incorporate, for example, some serpentines on the outer face of the tray and pumping means to circulate a fluid previously-heated by an energy source through said serpentines. The installation of the mentioned heating means is very costly and has negative repercussions on the final machine cost. Another drawback is that the surface of the tray has to be manufactured with very narrow dimensional tolerances and with final grinding and finishing that also involve high costs that add to the final machine cost.
Another type of ironing machine for clothing articles is also known comprising an ironing roller supported and guided in a rotating manner in a frame, with heating means arranged to heat its cylindrical surface, together with one or more pressing rollers arranged in a rotating manner on said frame in parallel to said ironing roller and in contact with same. A series of parallel endless bands are mounted on various satellite rollers of the ironing roller, which embrace an angular portion of the ironing roller to accompany the clothing articles maintaining them in contact with ironing roller. Driving means are included to rotate the ironing roller and/or the pressing roller or rollers and/or circulate said endless bands. The pressing roller or rollers are adapted to provide an ironing pressure on the clothing articles that pass between them and the ironing roller, which is achieved, either directly by the weight of the pressing roller, or with the assistance of thrusting devices, such as, for example, mechanisms based on elastic members or pneumatic cylinders etc.
Patents U.S. Pat. No. 3,557,665, 5,551,175, 5,933,988 and patent application US-A-2001/0015025 describe different examples of roller ironing machines in which at least one pressing roller provides an ironing pressure against the heated roller.
In this type of machine, the ironing pressure is only applied to the line of contact between the pressing roller and the ironing roller, so that this pressure must be considerably high in order to be efficient. One drawback is that, in order to achieve such efficient ironing pressure, the pressing roller has to be extremely heavy or has to be pushed by the mentioned thrusting devices, which complicates the machine and increases production costs. Moreover, in the case of employing the roller weight to provide the ironing pressure, the pressing roller position is limited to the upper part of the roller, with the ideal position being that in which the axes of both cylinders are in a vertical plane. This conditions the locations of the loading entrance and the unloading exit for the clothing articles with respect to the ironing roller, makes it difficult to arrange said entrance and exit on opposite sides of the ironing roller, which becomes a drawback when it is desired to connect two or more ironing units in series or an ironing unit with other laundry processing units for clothing articles.